Final Fantasy 5: the brainstorming

68 posts in this topic

1) As said somewhere above, originally I wanted to remove MP altogether.
But that is kinda difficult if you have tiered spells. I mean sure, I could change it to Fire1 hits one target, Fire2 hits all with the multitarget penalty but what should Fire3 do then?
Or replace tier3 entirely, that'd work too.
Or scratch Fire2 AND 3, then keep Fire"1" as toggleable single/multitarget.
Ok, there probably aren't that many staples in the series we're missing AND can recreate.
Plus, certain classes would become overpowered just on the basis of sheer choices.
A Black Mage with 18 answers per problem instead of 5 would be terrifying.

And how'd you balance Fire1 against Fight AND X-Fight at the same time..
problems, problems..

And what to do with MP damage/stealing/regenating effects then.

3) This would just be a name change then.
I don't think that is really necessary when magic is so freely available that you can file it under "a mage was bored between battles".

4) Overall it increases the complexity of choice together with element changes.
Every item modifies elemental weakness and strength so on the open sea where water will be more present you'd rather not take fire items unless the side effects are really, really good.

5) "Many elements" is imo only a problem when ways to inflcit damage of that type barely exists.
At the moment I only recall one way outside of Gaia (I exclude it because of region lock) to inflict poison (Bio) and water damage (Leviatan; Aqua Rake is non-elemental).

6) Don't give me ideas.
Else I remember what the lowest difficulty was you used and then deny the final battle on difficulty 4 or easier.
And on a pure difficulty 1 playthrough you get a third phase on the final boss.

7) BD had the most hilarious version honestly.
By default you could turn encounters off or increase it up to almost every step.
BUT!
If you grind your starting class a whole lot you get "enemy lure" ability which increases the encounter rate as well.
Pointless.

Overall I don't have much problem with random encounters themselves.

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1) Ah, I was referring to what you're already doing (with having MP start at 0, etc.) as "scrapping" the system, so I was just saying I support that idea. The SNES era FF MP system just strikes me of a brainless copycat of Dragon Quest's MP system. Except in Dragon Quest games you have very limited inventories, sparse if any methods of restoring MP in a dungeon, and a significant focus on dungeon attrition, and these factors make that MP system work decently. But in FF, with virtually limitless inventories, many MP restoring items, and less of a focus on dungeon attrition: it just feels pointless.

5) Sparse usage of the many elements is a frequent problem, yes. But I would say that another frequent problem is when having so many elements makes it take too long to identify enemy weaknesses/strengths such that you don't discover them until the dungeon is basically over (or don't bother trying in the first place). Showing the enemy element types addresses that issue, though.

6) Hey it's not my fault if you carry an idea to its extreme! I just like for being at the end of a game on "Hard" mode to serve as a testament to a Hard mode run that has occurred. Rather than being some dial you could have turned up or down at any time.

7) Well, I was only suggesting that unaugmented random encounter systems are problematic (in terms of appeal). Examples of augments would be the BD thing or even something with minimal impact like the SMT/EO encounter radar (of green -> yellow -> red). This isn't terribly relevant to a hack, though. If the original game had no augments, no one is going to bat an eye if the hack doesn't either. I only mentioned it because you're already looking to apply an augment, and I think it'll make for a nice bonus feature.

4) So basically I was referring to the shift from "typed" slots (head/body/shield/etc) to untyped (all accessories). I see both as equally viable, so I guess you could call this playing devil's advocate, but I wanted to point out the benefits of a typed system. I dunno if you've played Fire Emblem Awakening or Fates, but in those games you can have your player characters marry and produce an offspring based on the parents. However, each char can only marry one other char. Because of this, when you have characters marry, you have to carefully consider all the other possible marriages you're giving up as a result. If you could marry anyone freely, you'd have a lot more options to choose from, but the depth of the decision becomes a lot shallower, because you don't have so many opportunity costs to consider. You'd just choose the most desirable partner in each individual case.

Similarly, with typed EQ slots, when you equip a helmet you're both deciding on that helmet and deciding against every other helmet. This means you have to consider what kinds of benefits can be gotten from helmets vs. what kinds of benefits can be gotten from other types of EQ, and decide not only if this is the right choice to make for an EQ slot, but also if it's the right choice to make for the helmet slot, specifically. So, compared to untyped slots, you have fewer build total options to consider, but the process of considering them is more complex.

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1) Yeah I know; with certain other changes I made the normal MP system would be even more pointless:
minimal encounter rate to run back and forth between inn and dungeon almost unhindered and infinite ethers say hi.

5) To be fair, the Blue Mage teaches an ability to scan for elemental weaknesses.
And it just costs 10 ABP which is almost nothing compared to what you get over the entire game (2500+?).
Sidenote: in this hack you'll have it from the start and it'll use no turn - afterall it only gives the solution to a visible "math" problem of what does element1 + element2 have as a weakness.

6) Just look at SD3SOM, I rarely do things in moderation >.>

4) There are several items that are one of a kind, so to an extend the same sentiment still applies. It just extends the options for classes that are usually worse off.
And it is kinda required because I otherwise have not many options to give several items per element in each slot.
The game can only have a max of 95 defense items, spread over shield, helm, armor and accessoires.
Here now thanks to element changes also spread over 8 elements.
Also availability is a problem. I can hardly have 12 defense items before the first boss just to cover the basics (3 elements per item category).

I stand by my decision here.

I haven't played either game but I could imagine that a straight forward step by step choice in that system would lead to a seemingly good couple wise pairing of
char a1 marries a2, b1 marries b2, etc.
while a more optimal setup for the whole team would have
a1 marries a2, b1 marries c2, c1 marries b1
maybe because b2 is only 1% better than c2 for b1 but b2 is 80% better for c1 than c2

err what was that about again?...

hmmm ... would I break any "sacred FF rule" by NOT having tiered magic? Or cutting X-Fight to 3 hits instead of 4?

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I can hardly have 12 defense items before the first boss just to cover the basics (3 elements per item category).

How many defense items does it take to cover the basics with untyped slots?

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

while a more optimal setup for the whole team would have
a1 marries a2, b1 marries c2, c1 marries b1
maybe because b2 is only 1% better than c2 for b1 but b2 is 80% better for c1 than c2

Yeah you pretty much got it. And it's a maddening web of inheriting classes, skills, stat growths, and stat caps, along with each resulting child also being unique and having their own classes/skills/growths/caps to consider. Combine the complications of gender, the fact that some character matchups won't mate regardless of circumstance, and an understandable refusal to engage in incest, and you get a maddening web of optimization that hasn't really been untangled yet even though the game has been out for over a year.

6 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

hmmm ... would I break any "sacred FF rule" by NOT having tiered magic? Or cutting X-Fight to 3 hits instead of 4?

Tiered magic is semi-sacred. But then I've seen Chrono Trigger hacks that rename Luminaire to Holy and Dark Matter to Ultima, so apparently nothing is sacred.

X-Fight I don't think is sacred at all. If anything, it sounds like it'd only hit twice. Though you may as well just nerf it's power instead of its hit count so it can keep its flair? Bonus points if the hits have more difficulty getting through high defenses.

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How many defense items does it take to cover the basics with untyped slots?

Without counting shields 1/3 of what typed needs. And 3-4 elements in the first area should cover everything needed.

3 hours ago, zombero said:

X-Fight I don't think is sacred at all. If anything, it sounds like it'd only hit twice. Though you may as well just nerf it's power instead of its hit count so it can keep its flair? Bonus points if the hits have more difficulty getting through high defenses.

I can change:

hit count 1-4 (5+ will crash the game if dual wielded)

defense ignoring or not; vanilla had that set, my version has not anymore

evade ignoring or not; vanilla used this as well

1/2, normal or double attack power (value before defense); this one has normal

1/2, normal or double damage (value after defense); this one uses 1/2

I already have a "X-Fight" clone that hits twice with half attack and double damage; so it has a much harder time against defense but at best deals double damage total compared to Fight.
So the idea was to make X-Fight hit 3 times with half damage making it always 150% of Fight but either above or below the clone depending on defense.

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Without counting shields 1/3 of what typed needs. And 3-4 elements in the first area should cover everything needed.

Gotcha. Well, with the limited total item quantity and proposed element system: I can see why untyped slots would be highly desirable. I'm currently deciding how many typed and untyped slots to include in a system, so the tangent was relevant to my own interests.

5 hours ago, praetarius5018 said:

So the idea was to make X-Fight hit 3 times with half damage making it always 150% of Fight but either above or below the clone depending on defense.

Sounds like the best choice from the options you listed. Though some of what you're proposing for this hack (and some of what it appears you've done for SD3) seem like ASM hacks of a level that would make circumventing these restrictions trivial? Unless it's all being done with rather clever data manipulations.

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Gotcha. Well, with the limited total item quantity and proposed element system: I can see why untyped slots would be highly desirable. I'm currently deciding how many typed and untyped slots to include in a system, so the tangent was relevant to my own interests.

In doubt, 3 is always a good starting number.

3 hours ago, zombero said:

Sounds like the best choice from the options you listed. Though some of what you're proposing for this hack (and some of what it appears you've done for SD3) seem like ASM hacks of a level that would make circumventing these restrictions trivial? Unless it's all being done with rather clever data manipulations.

Well, yes, asm edits are always involved.
The thing with X-Fight is that it is a multilayered problem actually.
X-Fight itself only calls the weapons attack several times with additional flags.
Certain weapons use magic damage formulas which ignore those flags, like the HP-stealing Blood Sword or most Rods.

...

You know, yes, I should just remove the half damage flag from X-Fight and add a hardcoded check at the end of the damage application that checks for the ability being used to being X-Fight and then modify damage there.
That'd solve so many problems at once.

Also X-Fight is so slow, especially with dual wield. That makes me like 3 hits instead of 4 even more.
Queue 2 dual wielding characters with X-Fight and you can make and eat breakfast before it is done.

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It's great that each class, like Mime, would have the ability to equip more abilities. However, one thing that has always irritated me about FFV is that every ability is weighted the same. For example, Black Magic or Dual Wield is weighted the same as See Hidden Passages? Really? Why would I ever burn an ability slot on Auto-Shell unless I had no other option?

There's a couple of solutions for this, and both very likely involve some pretty huge hacks.

1. Make it so the characters have a ton of ability slots, like 6 per class, and make it so each ability consumes 1-3 slots. Then, you can assign a weight to each ability. This is kinda like the system in Final Fantasy Dimensions.

2. Make it so the abilities are given a type, kinda like in Final Fantasy Tactics; so there are counter abilities, support abilities, etc.

I feel that this would create a lot more in terms of customization, and would provide a great opportunity to balance all or most abilities; and not just have many of them be throwaways.

Also, I would make it a design goal to make the Mime and Freelancer classes more niche classes. It would really be cool to have a system where you are heavily encouraged to choose actual classes for end-game, instead of us all having 4 mimes or 4 freelancers with our end-game party.

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I can't add more slots but what I did was that in-battle passive abilities are replaced with certain active abilities, specifically with !Item, !Fight, !Brave (take two actions now, double delay until next turn), !Scan in that order whichever you don't have yet.

So if you put on your Thief:
!Steal (always set because of class)
Politics (passive that gives you 2x items on steal and from victory spoils)
Counter
Evade

you can in-battle select from:
!Steal
!Brave
!Fight
!Item

but still get the benefits from the 3 passive skills.

Innate abilities now count for all classes, not only for Mime and Freelancer.

As for knowing which are innate:

Plus Freelancer is not selectable once you have switched.
Well, in short every class is like the vanilla Mime.

I hope that answers that slightly.

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1) As said somewhere above, originally I wanted to remove MP altogether.
But that is kinda difficult if you have tiered spells. I mean sure, I could change it to Fire1 hits one target, Fire2 hits all with the multitarget penalty but what should Fire3 do then?
Or replace tier3 entirely, that'd work too.
Or scratch Fire2 AND 3, then keep Fire"1" as toggleable single/multitarget.
Ok, there probably aren't that many staples in the series we're missing AND can recreate.
Plus, certain classes would become overpowered just on the basis of sheer choices.
A Black Mage with 18 answers per problem instead of 5 would be terrifying.

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Looking forward to trying this. I've always thought FFV was the most forgettable of the SNES FF's, but based on what you've done with Sin of Mana, I'm down to try this one out too. The ideas are interesting and I will probably get my ass kicked, which is the whole point. Will be staying tuned. Cheers.

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It sounds like your FJF style run is similar to a more FF1 like 'natural' run.

A true FJF unlocks only four jobs, but you can have all four characters eventually learn all four jobs. While it's not quite as challenging as one job per character, it does allow for some fun synergy. Like a Mystic Knight with !Mug or !X-Fight for Chicken Knife awesomeness. I really like that style of gameplay.

Would there be a way to have each crystal only unlock one job, chosen at random from the time the crystal shatters?

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Still my question: what would that gain?
Regular FF5 FJF works already and has many, many more variants than could be added in the ROM easily.
Plus I've 0 idea for GBA ASM so that'd lose 4 jobs from the pool.

And I sadly doubt anyone would ever go so far as to do a challenge run in any of my works.

Either way, the "easist" way to get an FJF mode for my mod would be an external generator that modifies a few specific values in the ROM according to "better" randomness than FF5 itself can manage.
The FF5 RNG can only have 256 different states. Needed would be at least 720 (6 wind jobs x 6 water jobs w/ mime x 5 fire jobs x 4 earth jobs).
So that obviously makes 2/3 of all combinations not possible.
Just imagine that this could possibly mean that 70% of teams are stuck with Berserker, glorious times!

hmmm.... shouldn't be too hard to port the needed change to a regular FF5, though would still need to write that "generator" - I've no idea how to do that.

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I was checking your comments about the wealth of elements and poverty in methods to use them. I don't especially mind that some elements are easier to use than others; that's a way to make certain spells more special. But I agree that it should be restricted to one or maybe two elements. No reason for water to be super-exotic, as you said. Would it be possible to make relics or other gear that changes attacks of one element to a related element? For example, your ice spells and attacks now deal water damage instead. Or your lightning attacks now deal wind damage. I said this with no clue how difficult it would be to code, so if it's not feasible I'll understand. I just wanted to throw the idea out there.

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The idea wasn't exactly to make any element convertable to any other element, but I get what you mean. Didn't know about some spells being balanced around being one particular element. Maybe a better method for game flavor would be for some elements to be easier to access through weapons and others easier through attack spells. And you seem to be doing something along those lines already.

considering which skills work with what weapon type and which not or which stats they use, each element is quite different.
and (current) max attack power varies as well:
fire tops out at 83, wind at 91, water at 100 (max braveblade)

with that black may have access to all 8 elements but not equally;
e.g. its only holy type is a blind inflicting spell
for wind HP drain (better not try against undead)
and for ice well ice and death, etc.

white has fury/berserk for fire, nothing for ice, storm and charm for wind, etc.

Theoretically you just need fire, ice, lightning and wind to hit every single type weakness currently.
Most late game bosses have two elements, some regular enemies do too; those may have depending on combination 1-4 weaknesses (I extra checked that no combination results in 0 weaknesses).

If it was a fixed exchange like ice <-> water, poison <-> fire, etc. this would still be too much imo;
a too strong move would go from potentially being very good 25% of the time to 50%, have the right 2 and you're "done".
sorry, don't want that.

e.g. meteo is very problematic; it deals 4 hits to a random target though those may hit the same target, even for all 4 times if no other target is present, like in many boss fights.
it is insanely powerful if you can give it ideal circumstances - one target weak to earth, earth amp gear, mp to keep the spam going.
but that is also its drawback: if the boss resists earth it only/still deals above neutral damage in total - remember: 4 full power hits
I really didn't pay too much attention to what boss is weak to what elements and what that would mean, I just looked that I have something that fits and a good variance of types/weaknesses (e.g. the final boss's final form has unique weaknesses for each targetable part).
Meteo isn't alone, there are other insanely powerful moves - goblin punch, aqua rake, flare(s), echo, a dozen variants of "death", etc.
While they have a fixed type they are (almost) guaranteed to get their time to shine but (hopefully) not "solve" the game alone.
I'm not even sure how an element change on aqua rake could work, would it also change the anti-desert type? ouch..

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Maybe we could pull a page from the Adventurers comic and have Meteo stop working after enough casts. I mean there are only so many meteors in local outer space, right? I kid, I kid. Even though I'd love to see a game actually do that.

The point of bosses and other encounters being weak to innately powerful spells is definitely an issue. As you say, we don't want these encounters to be "solved" too easily. The only solution I can think of that wouldn't make such spells useless would be to give very powerful spells a cooldown similar to items under your new system. Then we'd need to worry a bit less about some of the things you mention. Granted, this might be less of a drawback in random encounters, but at least in that situation you'd still have to charge up the MP. That would give the random monster some time to do devious things before the Holy or Flare or Meteor or whatever else.